The bell over the café door jingles as I step inside Juneberry Café. Warmth hits me instantly, along with the smell of cinnamon, sugar, and something floral I can’t quite place. Behind the counter, a girl with dark chestnut hair pulled into a low bun and a plum-colored apron dusted in flour is arranging pastries behind the glass.
When she finally looks up, she smiles like she knows me.
“Elsie,” she says, already reaching for a mug. “Hey! You want coffee?”
I blink. “Uh. Yeah. How did you—?”
“I remember you,” she says. “Of course I do.”
She pours without asking what I’d like. Sets the mug in front of me, perfectly hot, perfectly tinted with cream, a dusting of cinnamon floating on top. No lid.
“Isla Winslow,” she says, wiping her hands on her apron.
The name hits a spark. “You live at the orchard, right?”
She nods. “Mmhmm.”
Mirabelle Grove. Rows of heirloom plum trees tucked along the edge of Old Bell Road. Elspeth used to take me there in the spring to see the blossoms—soft pink and white like confetti—and let me run barefoot through the grass while she bought jam from Isla’s mom at the farmstand.
“We’d play near the pond behind the cider shed,” I say slowly. “You brought a frog in a mason jar once and told me it was your cousin.”
More than that, Isla and I were real friends once. One of my only. But we lost touch even before I moved away—drifted the way kids do when one belongs and the other only visits.
Isla grins. “Still one of my better lies.”
“Do you work here now, too?”
She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and nods toward the counter. “Nope, I just dropped off jam and figured I’d lend a hand. June’s swamped this week.”
She gestures behind her at the stack of receipts and a flour-dusted phone that looks like it’s been ringing off the hook and ignored every time.
“This is on the house,” she adds, nudging the cup toward me.
I squint at it. “Why?”
She winks. “Because Elspeth helped June start this place, and we pay that kind of thing forward here. Generation to generation.”
“Well, thank you.”
I lift the cup and take a sip. It’s exactly how I like it. Not similar or close—exactly the way Elspeth used to make it when I was fifteen and trying to act grown-up. Coffee that tastes like home and effort and something warmer than memory.
“Tastes just like my grandma used to make it,” I say, a little misty-eyed. “It’s good.”
“We all miss her, too,” she says. “Loads.”
I clear my throat, trying to shake the sudden lump forming there.
“Thanks,” I say again. “Really.”
I stare into the cup as the café hums around me, soft and slow. The town has its own rhythm, and it’s not interested in adjusting to mine. I take another sip—to clear my head—and lean against the counter.
Then the door chimes. Rather than turning, I close my eyes for a beat and pray it’s anyone but—
“Hey there, stranger,” comes the voice, smug and gravel-warm. “Looks like Blue Willow’s treating you real nice. Did Bobby make all your dreams come true?”
I open my eyes and pivot slowly on my heel. Wells is standing inside the doorway, snow clinging to his boots and the cuffs of his jeans. His dark blond hair is tousled like he ran a hand through it on the walk over, but his jaw is sharp and clean-shaven.
He’s holding a cardboard box labeled Foxglove Florals–Returns, and he’s staring at me with an infuriatingly calm expression. He has nothing but time, it seems, and the full intent to waste mine.
